Hamiltonians in 1944 would barely consider this year’s season a winter. They got walloped with a pre-Christmas storm that dropped 62.5 centimetres of snow between late afternoon Dec. 11 and noon the next day. Drifts were two to three metres high. That’s about the same amount of snow expected for a megastorm predicted for New York and Boston overnight Monday night (Jan. 26, 2015)

This view is King King Street East, looking west. after the big storm of 1944 in Hamilton

In Hamilton, the Big Storm of ’44 caused three deaths, cut off streetcars and buses for five days, closed schools for three days and interrupted bread and milk deliveries. (Above: King Street East, looking west. Below: Snow clearing at King and James, Dec. 12, 1944. Hamilton Spectator Archives)